POP CULTURE / The Reel World / My big fat indie payday

James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, November 17, 2002

2002-11-17 04:00:00 PDT Hollywood -- Jim Milio admits he had little idea what he was in for five years ago when his company wrote a $500 check to option a script from an unknown Greek American actress named Nia Vardalos, but the paltry sum seemed about right given the odds against this tale about a topsy-turvy wedding ever reaching a theater.

The company, MPH Entertainment, located in a Burbank strip mall next to a piano outlet, had found a comfortable niche as a producer of cable-channel documentaries like "Las Vegas: Gamble in the Desert," "History of Prostitution:

Sex in the City" and "Vikings: Fury from the North." But MPH took a flyer because it had been trying to break into feature films. Its partners met Vardalos when she played a modest role in "Men Seeking Women," which Milio wrote, directed and produced.

It went nowhere. But today that $500 investment has produced the most astounding return in the history of Hollywood. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which ultimately cost $5 million to make, stands on the brink of earning $200 million at the box office -- the most ever by an independently produced movie. It is already being turned into a network television series, and Milio said he and his partners at MPH, in addition to reaping enormous profits, are being deluged with calls to see if they have other hot projects.

And the story of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" has already become a Hollywood myth -- a tale (supposedly) of artistic passion and creative purity trumping the sort of suffocating studio machinery most in evidence this time of year, when megabudget films with treacly emotions and fast-food tie-ins are rolled out. It's a myth illuminating simple truths about the role serendipity can still play in the movies and other pop culture factories, but it obscures a deeper reality.

Indies represent to actors, writers and directors what a Harley on the open road means to most working stiffs -- a whiff of high horsepower freedom in a world where there is precious little. Instead of endless meetings and studio politicking, there's just craft. There are endless trials by fire, of course, but they're seen as purifying rituals.

Now the reality. Indies generally require enormous levels of commitment, but most people in Hollywood make them because they never want to undergo the ordeal a second time. They're a means to an end, and more often than not, that end is entering the far cushier, if exasperating, world of the studios.

"What you have to realize is that all the pressure is on people to get out of the indie world," Phil Joanou, who directed an unsuccessful indie called "Entropy" several years ago, said in a telephone interview from Australia, where he was shooting Gatorade commercials. "A lot of what indie films have become is an audition for the studios. You do it to leave it as fast as you can."

This is abundantly clear from the most talked about indie this holiday season, a low-budget gritty cop drama called "Narc." Ray Liotta, who produced and stars in the movie, got involved because he loved the story, but also because he felt the studios had written him off as a lead, and he needed a vehicle to get back on the A-list.

"You do this to get something off your chest, to do something different or to turn your career around," he said. "This was to put me back in the game, get on the map again."

Although "Narc" will not even open until Dec. 20, its writer-director, Joe Carnahan, has already moved on; he has been signed to direct a movie with Harrison Ford with a budget reported to be close to $70 million.

The partners at MPH said no such sugar plums were dancing in their heads when they battled to produce "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." They were blessed when Tom Hanks' production company, Playtone, got interested, and then took the lead in getting financing and seeing the project through.

Gary Goetzman, Hanks' partner at Playtone, said even with their clout, getting a distributor was almost impossible; the little indie ultimately required far more time and attention than some of the major studio pictures he has produced. "This was a flukey, chance thing," Goetzman said. Would he do it again, given the demands? "Probably not."

As for MPH, success only goes so far. At the same time it paid $500 to Vardalos, it bought a script called "Rat Girl," which it considered an equally promising comedy. "Rat Girl" remains on the shelf.

And then there's the experience of Melissa Jo Peltier, another MPH partner. Seven years ago, she wrote a script and has struggled ever since to get it made, rewriting it, by her count, nearly a dozen times for different production companies. It's finally being shot, but with half the original $3 million budget and no distributor yet. It has a good chance, Peltier said, of running on cable.

"We say what we always end up saying -- 'It's close,' " said Peltier. " 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' " is really satisfying, but you have to do things that are satisfying -- win or lose."